by Holland Rae
But Eliza’s…Eliza had always been the proper daughter, the daughter that had never fallen in love or raced through the woods or gotten mud on her boots or run off to become a ship captain in the Spanish Main. It was all her fault that Eliza had been forced to marry a man their father’s age, with only a few remaining whispers of hair and an overt case of gout. It had been Catalina’s fault, Charlotte’s fault, because who would have wanted to invite scandal through the front door in the form of a young woman whose sister had run off to avoid matrimony? Surely, it hardly set a pretty precedent.
But Eliza, for all her propriety and adherence to the rules, had never blamed her. She had been the most faithful of the family, after their father had refused to acknowledge his firstborn, after their extended relatives had cast a pall over her memory. Eliza had remained her dearest friend and most important confidante, no matter the distance.
Catalina was looking for Eliza’s latest letter, if only to reread her dear sister’s familiar words once again, when something quite other caught her eye.
This was an old letter. The corners were frayed, and the page was stiff, from having spent so many years folded up and kept in a box. Her newer missives didn’t look like this, but the letter had grown pale and neglected. She pulled it toward herself, finding it suddenly imperative that she keep this letter close, that she read each line for the detail and memory it provided.
Charlie,
We’ve reached the Cape of Good Hope now. We’re still more than two months from home, but Captain White believes it shall be smooth sailing. Not so for Henri, who has been seasick quite the whole of our journey. They say there is not much to do for his stomach. He merely must wait out the worst of it. I, on the other hand, am quite content to spend all my time on deck, watching the waves and the animals of the deep sea. It is humbling, for the son of so many titles, to be reminded of his own mortality. Out this far, were we to wreck, that would be the last of all of us.
Forgive me for being maudlin. I sincerely hope Mother’s condition improves, although it shows little sign of doing so. I try to keep a happy front for my family, but we all know the truth of the matter. There is little hope of her return from the edge. Now, we simply must remain optimistic that we arrive at her home before the worst. At least that way she will survive to say goodbye.
Rather than thinking of that end, however, I spend much of my time observing the ships and ocean life. This is such a far way off from London or Paris, and though I have traveled the route before, I find it more interesting with each trip. Perhaps one day I will make a life for myself among these waves. Such is the burden of an older son, I suppose, that a future with that freedom remains only a dream. No matter where I go, Charlie, I hope you will visit. I miss you, and truly I could use a good laugh right about now. You always know what to say to make me smile.
Henri sends his regards to Eliza, and from all of us to your father. I wish I wrote with better tidings, but such is the way of things.
Regards,
Your friend, Armand Rajaram de Bourbon
Her hands began to tremble, and Catalina forced in several deep, long breaths before she was able to steady herself. How much time had passed in both of their lives since the day Armand had written her that letter? How many events had turned the tide of their futures, so their paths crossed again, but too colored by history to ever be as they once were? Images of all that could have been—a country estate filled with their children, an old age with rocking chairs by a roaring fire—flickered across her mind. He could have been a politician in the House of Lords. She could have done her charity work with all the clout of her own title and several of her husband’s. The fantasy was darling. It was innocent. It was a lie.
The people they had become were built from their circumstances and their pasts. Had neither of them ever left London, would they even be the same selves they were now? Catalina doubted so.
And yet. And yet perhaps she owed him something, something for the past, for the future that might have been. The familiar scrawl of his handwriting, of his full legal name, his brother’s name in dark ink across the parchment, sent a guilty streak flinging through the whole of her body. She had taken him on as a job for the sake of his brother, for the sake of the Williams and the Rose McEwans, who had likely borne her babe by now. She hadn’t taken this job on for him, and she had been altogether up front about that stark truth.
But perhaps—Catalina was horrified to find that a single frustrated tear had slid down her cheek and was now staining the letter—perhaps she hadn’t been fair to him. No, Armand was not the same man she had left behind, when trading in ball gowns for rapiers. He was not the same man who sailed from the docks of London all those years ago. But she was not the same either, for better or for worse, and perhaps, for the benefit of their families, for the benefit of their pasts, it was time she slackened the rope that held them both so taut. Circumstances had brought them both here. Circumstances could be damned.
****
“You’re awake early.”
It was a statement, not a question, but, though Armand kept his face toward the sea, he answered her unspoken query nonetheless.
“I can’t sleep on ships,” he said, and she heard the pang of annoyance creep through his voice at the admission. The gentry from London were the ones who should have suffered delicate constitutions upon the sea waves, she imagined Armand was thinking. He was a magistrate upon an island, a man required to sail regularly. Difficulty sleeping aboard a ship was not a minor inconvenience. It was practically a handicap.
“I remember,” Catalina said slowly. She had been remembering a lot these days. “I also recall your difficulty sleeping in dark places, loud places, and drafty places.” She saw the corners of his mouth curve slightly into a smile. Behind the mask of a face that had become this man’s expression to the world at large, a sliver of her childhood betrothed still remained. Somewhere, deep down, she knew Armand retained a little of the young man she had once been so close to.
“You always did remember the important details,” he replied, his voice not without a note of wistfulness, and another flash of guilt went straight to Catalina’s gut. For all that she was roiling in the aftermath of her first life coming back to haunt her in the flesh, Armand was managing the same, in addition to the fear that his brother had been killed by pirates because he hadn’t acted quickly enough. Surely, he could be forgiven, or at least excused, for his bad tempers.
“Share dinner with me this evening?” Catalina said, without preamble. “We’re a week’s sail from the pirate stronghold, and I think a civilized conversation could likely do us both a world of good.” From where she stood at his side, she could see Armand’s eyebrow quirk up.
“Feeling suddenly nostalgic?” he asked.
Another pang of guilt ricocheted around her hollow chest, though this time for her sister, and for the life she had left in England all those years ago. Even, Catalina supposed, for her father.
“I’m allowed.” Her voice was defensive, as only the voice of someone who knows themselves to be in a losing fight can be.
“And yet, it sounds so much like a confession.” His voice had taken on a drawling quality, and each word, each letter, was dipped in thick, molten steel—powerful and burning. She knew exactly what he was thinking about her trip into the past. But she straightened her spine and stared at the side of his face, strong, set, controlled.
“Priests and captains can both marry; why can’t we both take confession?” she asked lightly, knowing exactly what he had meant by his statement and directly ignoring it.
Armand turned to face her, and there was something in his eyes that Catalina could not identify, a sadness, a knowledge of the sins of men, perhaps. Not his own sins. Armand did not have sins.
“I’ll be at your cabin at eight.” Curt and controlled. Very well. She had intentions to be tolerable, but there was no reason to have her neck snapped by a dark look.
“I’ll be anticipating your
arrival with my breath held.”
The quirk of one eyebrow was the only indication he had understood her sardonic tone, and then he was gone, back down the ladder and out of sight.
Chapter Eleven
The problem with ships was, no matter how desperately you wished to avoid a person, there was really only so far to go. A man couldn’t simply duck into a tavern, or lose himself at a card table for an evening. There was no disappearing to the countryside, or the inverse, staying in London far past the season’s end. No, a ship, even one as large and decorous as the Liberté, had limited nooks and crannies in which to hide, and literally none that tickled Armand’s fancy. He was a grown man, for God’s sake. What the hell kind of man would it make him to hide out in a closet or, God forbid, a barrel, just to avoid her for a few more hours?
And yet, the thought of joining Captain Sol in her cabin for dinner had his blood pounding in his veins as strongly as the sea crashing against the shore. She was turning out different from what he had anticipated. Still a pirate, still a vigilante who not ought to be taking the law into her own hands, but a woman who clearly knew the rules of conduct when it came to seafaring and armed combat. It was almost difficult to picture her in a gown, her hair curled tightly to her head, almost impossible to remember Charlotte Talbot ever inhabiting her body, and yet…
There was no denying the expression in those deep eyes. It was subtle and easy to miss, but the truth of the matter was Armand was well versed in an expression like that. He saw it in the mirror every morning. She was lonely. It had barely occurred to him for a moment the sacrifices she might have made for the orphans and runaways for whom she now cared, but one look into those eyes, and Armand knew. Her sister. Her father. Her whole life in England—Charlotte Talbot would never be able to step foot back upon the land, for the sheer chaos it would cause among the stuffiest of the aristocracy.
But clearly she missed home, and the realization sent a pang of guilt to Armand’s gut. Likely, his arrival had brought some well-buried memories to the surface, just as her arrival in his life had done.
Right now, that was all beside the point. He had managed most of the day without coming too close to the captain of the Liberté, but he was now standing before her cabin door, holding up his hand to the wood, where it hovered just above to knock. Was he absolutely mad to dine with her? She had a devilish wit, and a smile that could knock most men to their knees. But it was more than that. More, he was certain, than even their shared history. It was difficult to comprehend why, but Armand knew he couldn’t deny his growing desire for Catalina. Her hips and delicious waist curved just perfectly for a man’s hand—his hand. Her behind, in those completely ridiculous britches, was perfectly outlined and on stunning display. There were so many reasons he couldn’t give in to that desire.
She was a pirate.
The thought steeled him, and this time, when Armand brought his hand to the door, he actually reached it.
“Come in,” Catalina called, and he turned the handle, walking into her chamber. Candles glowed around the room’s edges, and for a moment, his eyes simply scanned, looking at the illustrations, the maps, the sculptures, until they came to rest upon her. He hadn’t expected her to wear a gown, not this new Catalina. But she had changed her clothes, and skintight britches, made of velvet, clung to her body like a glove, illuminating her candlelit curves in delicate shadows. Her shirt, a soft white silk, spilled from her body in rolls of fabric, loose and flowing, but still providing a decent view of the slope of her neck and the curve of her cheek where it met her jaw.
“It feels terribly sinful to wear such soft material,” Catalina said from her seat at the window. “And yet, every once in a while, it seems appropriate.” He walked over to where she was sitting and looked out the window. Deep in the sky, the moon hung, its light doubled by the strength of its reflection upon the water’s surface. There were certain things about life upon the ocean that Armand would never give up; the moon upon a clear night was one of them.
“You miss it, then?” he asked her, but they both knew it wasn’t a question. Some part of each of them, long buried and only just brought to the surface by their serendipitous reunion, had always missed it.
When she spoke, her voice was not that of a captain, a savior, or even a sailor, but the wistful tone of a woman imagining how life might have been different, how everything might have been different.
“I could have married him,” Catalina said quietly, almost so quietly that Armand was unable to hear, and he stepped closer to catch her words. “But for weeks, I tried to convince myself to be happy. For weeks, I imagined how my future might be.” She looked up at him, her mouth a smile, but her eyes holding a sadness that Armand somehow knew no other person had seen in nearly a decade. “But the day before the wedding came, and I felt as though there was a noose closing in around my neck, and then before I knew it, I was out the door on a ship headed for the world at large.”
Armand suppressed a laugh. He knew as well as anyone what it felt like to run away. But then her words begin to sink into his mind, and his heart pierced with a guilty sadness. He had left her. Of his own volition, perhaps not, but he hadn’t returned either, and that weighed upon his shoulders. It had been his absence that had caused her to flee London and her family. There would never be a day when he didn’t feel responsibility for that.
“Would you like a drink?” Catalina asked abruptly, and when she turned to face him, Armand could see the neckline of her thin, silk shirt was deep in the bodice, low and forgiving for anyone who dared a glance at her delicious curves. He shook himself, trying not to give in to the temptation of his own misplaced desire. She was beautiful, that much he could admit without pause. She was also absolutely the wrong woman with whom to dally.
“I’d love one,” he told her, for want of something to do. Catalina nodded and walked across the room, pouring them both a generous glass of brandy from the decanter on the sideboard.
“What are you running from, Armand?” she asked him, and the way that her voice curled around his name made Armand’s heart tighten. He hadn’t heard his name spoken that way since he was a boy. It was bittersweet.
“What makes you think I’m running from something?” he asked her.
She sat in a large chair before the window, the many panes of glass giving them an unadulterated view of shimmering seas and brilliant, raw moonlight. Armand followed suit, sitting in the chair beside her, his face a carnival mask of moonbeams and dark shadows. In answer to his question, Catalina only raised an eyebrow, as if to say don’t lie to me. Was he that obvious? Apparently.
“We never made it to India,” he said quietly. Her drink had been halfway to her mouth, and she stopped midaction. “Our ship was boarded by pirates and set aflame. My mother refused to jump.” His glass of brandy was suddenly fascinating, deep and gold, illuminated by the candlelight, and far less dangerous than the expression he knew was on her face right now. But Armand cleared his throat and continued, regardless. “She was very sick, as you might recall. With no land in sight, we had to swim for hours before another ship passed by. She didn’t want to be a burden.” Amazingly enough, his voice was steady and calm, and Armand felt a strange sense of relief at saying the story aloud. It had been several years since he’d thought much of that day, until his advisor had mentioned seeking out the mercenary. To tell the tale knowing it would elicit sympathy and not fear was a balm against his weathered heart.
“She made her choice to die with dignity,” Catalina said. The words were true and honest, and Armand knew she had become a ship captain to the core. To die with dignity was the highest of honors. “She made her choice, not you.” Catalina looked at him with eyes far too knowing and far too beautiful for a woman so hardened by the world. “I hope you haven’t been blaming yourself for her death all these years, Armand.”
He meant to lie, but there was no doubt in his mind that she would know in an instant. Instead, he let his silence be his admission.
The pause stretched into quietness, and Armand was forced to admit it was strangely comfortable, for all it swirled with memories and futures that could have been and the truth of what their futures were. Hell, he barely knew the woman sitting beside him, for all that they had spent their first fifteen years of life together.
“How?” he asked, almost sorry to break the silence. It felt nice to think one’s own thoughts with company for once. She raised her brow, and Armand elaborated. “All this?” he said, motioning to the ship, and the direction of the crewmembers sleeping down the small hallway. “How did the belle of London society become the captain of the most infamous ship in the Spanish Main?”
She held her hand to her chest and smiled wildly, with all the truth of an actress upon the stage.
“You really think this is the most infamous ship in the whole Spanish Main?” she asked him, her voice pitched to perfection. “You flatter me, sir.”
He rolled his eyes. Catalina had not lost every attribute of Charlotte Talbot, it appeared.
“And I was not the belle of the ball. If you recall, I was only fifteen when you left.”
He blinked his memories into focus and nodded. “So you were.” From the side, he could see her drain her glass in a single swallow. “Is my company so trying?” Armand asked, enjoying the dimples that spotted her cheeks when she smiled, small, but real.
“I haven’t remembered in a long time, Armand. Forgive me.”
He would. He would always forgive her, no matter her transgression. From the age of three, Charlotte Talbot had been his best friend. She’d been the one to make him laugh, the one to get him into trouble, the one to muddy his boots and tear his waistcoats. They’d had fun together, and for the eldest son meant to inherit at least one of three separate titles, fun was valued far higher than anything else.